


The House and the Woman Inside It

by takatakataka



Series: Dear Fellow Travelers [1]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, F/M, Gun Violence, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Platonic Relationships, References to Norse Religion & Lore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28412835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takatakataka/pseuds/takatakataka
Summary: Several years after the battle of Hoover Dam, House and his protege are still constantly learning about each other.
Relationships: Female Courier/Mr. House (Fallout)
Series: Dear Fellow Travelers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100759
Kudos: 7





	The House and the Woman Inside It

The sun hung low over New Reno, forcing its buildings to cast impenetrable shadows over the grimy streets. A large mutant rat scurried across the cracked pavement, followed quickly after by a half-starved dog. The chase was largely ignored by the mass of humanity, save a few bums cheering the dog on in hopes they could scrounge a piece once it had claimed it’s kill. Naturally, nobody noticed the short woman in the form-fitting rags with a zipper top satchel bag slung over her shoulder and tucked behind her back. The only skin that was visible was a pair of oddly pale legs beneath her tattered short skirt and above her combat boots.

In a row of rundown apartments, a rather lively street life continued business as usual. Merchants hawked dubious wares. Prostitutes of all stripes offered themselves to passers-by and the less fortunate begged or stole their way through the crowd. The woman moved wordlessly between and around them. Chafing at the filth of it all and desperate to free herself from the constricting conditions.

She stepped out through an opening in the crowd and up onto the sidewalk, pausing a moment to look over the heads of the assemblage to gain her bearings. Her eyes fell upon an unassuming three-story apartment complex and she took in a steadying breath as she slipped back into the crowd and towards it. She tugged at the edges of her large hood, careful to keep anyone from getting a good look at her face. 

Quickly, she made her approach towards the apartments, each footfall determined. Despite her small frame, it was obvious any attempt to stop her in her tracks would be impossible. The two guards at the complex’s entrance, clad in grimy suits and holding expensive looking laser pistols entirely too casually, noticed the obvious purpose in the approaching woman's walk. The pair stiffened up, one glanced to the other warily. Being the more experienced of the two, the other man gave a reassuring gesture with his hand and called out.

“Hey! This place is property of the Wrights! Back off, or-” the man’s order was cut off by two dull, squelching impacts into his chest. Blood splattered on the wall beside him as he crumpled to the ground. His partner had no time to react, meeting the same fate seconds later. Both men were dead before they hit the floor.

The woman reached the building’s entrance a few moments later, carefully reloading her silenced .22 pistol and slipping the half-used magazine of hollow points between her minimal breasts and into her shirt. She stepped over the men’s corpses gingerly, more concerned with stepping in any blood than touching them. A corpse is just an empty suit, after all, bloody boots on the other hand leave tracks. Pressing herself against the heavy wooden door, she pushed it open quietly. Ancient white paint flaked off onto her shoulder.

Her gun entered before her. The barrel swept the entrance corridor twice, passing over the centrally located staircase each time. Confident that she was still undetected, she flicked the petite pistol’s safety back on and wedged it back into its place at the top of her boot. No one had noticed the quiet report of her weapon over the din of the early evening crowd, but she would only have a few moments left before somebody who mattered noticed the corpses outside.

Grabbing both men by the back of their suit collars, she dragged them halfway through the door with a barely suppressed grunt. Another yank and the two hunks of dead weight were fully through. She stepped over the bodies haphazardly to the door, closing it with a quiet click. A few more moments passed as she tried to regain her composure. Her breath came out in quiet but ragged half gasps. Her lungs, scarred from poisoned air, wouldn’t allow for more.

The building was about as grimy as the rest of the city. Chipped paint, moldy carpet, broken drywall, bad lighting, and rotting or warping wood. The smell and rancid taste of stale air infused with a healthy dose of cigarette smoke and Jet assaulted her senses with each inhalation. It was a small wonder to her that anyone lived, let alone conducted business, here.

When her breathing settled back into its normal mild rasp, she got back to work. She slid the satchel bag around to her side, the canvas of its strap rubbing awkwardly against the burlap shawl draped over her shoulders. The zippers whine made her cringe. She paused. Listened for any signs of approach. Any creaking of rotting floorboards underfoot. The opening of warped doors. The inquisitive shuffle of footfalls against the sun-baked concrete outside.

Finding the tense silence unmolested, she reached into the bag and retrieved the 9mm submachine gun from within. Scanning her surroundings, she screwed a large suppressor onto the end of the barrel. Tightening the elongated can down into place, she threw the canvas sling of the gun around her neck. A magazine of 30 hollow point rounds found its way easily into her hand, she led it from the mouth of the bag and into the waiting mag well of the gun. Then, with a locking back of the bolt into the firing position and a quick extension of the stock, the butt of the gun was tucked into her right shoulder and she stepped out from the corridor.

She crossed the empty hallway and moved up the staircase. Floorboards squealed in pain under what little weight she put on them, trying to warn the building’s occupants of the intruder. She rounded the stairs landing with her head up and weapon raised towards the mouth of the second set of stairs. A crumbling ceiling and a flickering light greeted her half-heartedly. No sign of any guards.

As quiet as possible, she hurried up the second flight of stairs. A quick peek around the opening revealed the floorplan was much the same as the ground floor. A rectangular hallway built around a staircase with apartments branching off the sides. A lack of windows made the whole place unusually dark. Unlike the downstairs, however, the staircase to the next floor on this side had been blocked off with drywall to prevent access. Considering the condition of the drywall, this seemed to be a relatively new addition.

_Limiting the number of directions they can be attacked from?_ she questioned herself. With no better options, she rounded the corner to try the stairs on the other side. As she did this, she found a young man in a tank top smoking a cigarette by the open door of an apartment.

He started at the sight of this hooded stranger as she closed the distance between them. The start of a panicked yelp escaped his lips just before the open palm of her hand completely smothered them. She pushed him hard into the wall between his and the neighboring room with a smack. _Fuck._

Muffled noises attempted to claw through her fingers, the submachine gun was caught by the sling looped around her neck as she lifted her other hand to her mouth in a shushing motion. In the abysmal light, her finger just seemed to disappear into an abyss beneath her hood.

He shook his head desperately up and down, she ushered him towards the open door of his room before finally shoving him to the floor and leveled her Submachine gun at him with one hand. Weapon trained on his chest, she closed the door as silent as a mouse, never once breaking eye contact. He started to back away from her, fear in his eyes and mouth wired shut. She stayed by the door, listening for any moment outside it or up the stairs. A clock ticked away in the corner.

_Tick_

_Tick_

_Tick_

After an achingly slow few minutes, she let the gun drop again and closed the distance between them. He tried scrabbling back towards the bed but was quickly pinned in place between her thighs as she straddled his waist.

“Sorry about this.” She whispered, reaching for his belt. “But I need you to stay here for a few minutes until I finish upstairs.” The belt came undone easily and she slipped it out from around his waist. She deftly gathered his wrists against the closest corner leg of the bed and bound his hands to it with the leather belt. 

Three quick tugs at various points around her makeshift restraint and she was satisfied, rising up off of him and heading for the door. He opened his mouth to speak but froze as she made another shushing motion. She nodded her approval and then slipped back out the door with an almost silent click.

Her SMG was leveled at the door a few moments longer, waiting. The musty silence continued uninhibited. Satisfied that he had listened to her, she continued back down the hall. _He looked familiar, too familiar, have to ask when I untie him._ Reaching the end of the hall and where the staircase was supposed to be confirmed her suspicions.

_Chokepoint._ Only one avenue of approach to the third floor was up this small flight of stairs. Reaching into her bag, she withdrew a small disk-shaped object. Folding it open revealed an old pocket mirror. Crouching down, she carefully angled the mirror around the corner to get a look at what she was dealing with. 

Two contacts, both male, both armed with assault carbines. One was leaning up against the wall beside the guards. _How are they so calm? Did they not hear all that noise in the hall?_ She thought to herself as she brought the mirror back. Knowing she couldn’t close it without making a loud snapping sound, the hinge spring was too strong for that, she placed it on the floor behind her and stood back up.

She steadied the gun, took as steady a breath as her frail body would allow, and rounded the corner into the staircase. The guards were visibly startled at the sight of her. The less diligent of the two reached for his rifle. She was three steps up when she fired.

_Thwap! Thwap!_

Two rounds entered the more prepared one’s chest, sending him stumbling backward into the wall. His partner scrambled to get the gun ready. She was halfway up when the safety of his 5mm carbine clicked off.

_Thwap-Twhap-Thwap!_

The muffled sound of her 9mm submachine reported to her what she could already see. The first two shots struck the guard in the stomach and the chest, but the third struck him in the forehead. His body went stiff as brain matter sprayed in a wave against the ceiling, the back of his head practically exploding from the tumbling and mushrooming round. The lifeless husk collapsed forward down the stairs, the carbine in its hands letting off a burst uselessly into its holder’s foot. The woman just barely managed to dodge the armed corpse as it tumbled down the steps in a sickening heap.

“Shit fuck!” A voice rang out from just out of view at the top of the stairs. She reached the top and rounded the corner. The words belonged to a fat man in a shitty white suit wielding a large revolver, clearly too distracted by the corpses of his comrades to register her as a threat. “Vinny! Radio the bosses! We got a-”

_Thwap-Thwap!_

The 9mm SMG happily chirped. His body fell directly backward in a heap, two bloodstains mushrooming into one where his heart used to be.

Footsteps rang down the hallway around the left corner. She speed-walked after them, seeing a loafer wielding foot disappear through a doorway at the corner of the hall. Following them through, she saw a dark-haired man in a sweat-stained suit rushing for a radio in the corner.

_Thwap!_

A bloodstain blossomed at the center of his back as he slammed hard into the floor, he skidded a bit before coming to a stop at the base of the card table where a ham radio was armed and waiting. Feebly, he whimpered as he attempted to claw up at the radio. Whimpers turned to panicked gasping as her boot planted itself firmly at the base of his neck.

_Thwap!_

The shitty beige carpet turned crimson as the front of his head exploded outwards. They lingered there a moment. He continued to grow the new stain with his leaking head, as she studied the radio. Its well-worn microphone and cracked glass telling her of a life of constant use and abuse.

_Thwap!_

The death of the radio was far less bloody than any of the others so far.

“Shit!” A decidedly male hiss came from behind the connected room door and she caught the barest glimmer of movement away from the door. Curiously, however, there was movement on both sides.

To the right of the door, there was a young woman cowering in the corner. Blonde, maybe 25 give or take a few years, with bright clear eyes and skin unmarked by the telltale signs of drug abuse. She was dressed like a prostitute, but the clothes were ill-fitting and baggy where they shouldn't be. The woman's hands shot up in surrender the moment the intruder's gaze fell on her. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the intruder and the open doorway the voice had come from, focusing on something past it.

Following her gaze, the hooded woman spotted some quiet signs of movement just beyond the door. Making the shushing motion again, she went over to the wall beside the door and leveled her SMG at it, resting the muzzle of the suppressor about halfway up. She looked back to the prostitute, face still rendered invisible under her hood, and waited

The prostitute slow blinked at her, gears obviously turning in her head. After several long moments, she eased her hands up higher slowly. The hooded woman gradually matched the movements with her weapon along the wall. Creeping up higher and higher as the woman’s hands did the same. 

The prostitute stopped her movement suddenly, the Intruder halted her weapons upwards progress a moment later. They broke eye contact as the hooded woman looked to her weapons placement, now elevated fully above her head, before looking back to the girl for confirmation. 

The prostitute lowered her hands a few inches, the Intruder mirroring the movements with her weapon again. When the prostitute stopped, so did the Intruder.

The weapon was now roughly a third of the way up the wall, fully raised above her head, with the muzzle pressed against it. The Prostitute nodded. The intruder flicked her thumb and the gun made an audible click.

_ThwapThwapThwapThwapThwap!_

The SMG cried out in an all too satisfied burst of uninhibited machine gunfire. A gaping hole was left in the wall and a heavy crumpling sound could be heard from the other side. The woman nodded a thank you to the prostitute and stepped through the door.

A man who used to stand about two heads taller than his killer, lay motionless on the floor. Where his head used to be was now a mostly exploded mess and a large fire axe was visible underneath his corpse. She scanned the room for a moment before spotting a bald head attempting to hide out of sight behind a desk. Futilely, he attempted to hide further behind his cover as she approached.

For this inability to hide properly, she kicked the desk hard enough to force it forward and slam him into the wall.

“Alright, alright, alright! You got me!” He declared, slowly dragging himself to his feet and rubbing at the arm that took the bulk of the force from his shelter-turned-weapon. He was a bald older man in glasses, with a goatee framing his mouth, wearing a rubber or maybe plastic set of coveralls. “I’m not with them!” he declared, pointing at the corpse of the accidentally decapitated guard. “I’m just the cook! Just trying to make a-”

_Thwap!_

The bullet ripped through his heart, stopping him dead. He fell in a lifeless heap not a moment later. She approached an unattended floor safe in the corner by where the labs cook had been hiding. The heavy metal door hung slightly open, creaking as she opened it wider with her foot. Inside were several thousand NCR dollars waiting patiently for a new owner. 

She didn't even consider pocketing the cash before whistling. Naturally, this came out more like a cracked puff of air than anything resembling a whistle. She cleared her throat instead, then suppressed a cough that tried to creep up after it. 

The girl in the previous room poked her head around the door frame warily, visibly unsure if she should run or stay still. 

“Money’s yours.” The gun woman said, voice coming out in a rasp. “Not doing any good sitting here.” With that, she stepped back out through the door and past the girl, fighting to hold in a coughing fit that wanted to have a word with her for that throat clearing. As she stepped out of the room, the fit forced its way out of her mouth and she doubled over from the painful throat tearing experience. She almost didn’t notice the girl go running into the safes room, eyes fixed on it.

The cough didn’t subside until she was fully down the stairs and at the door of the apartment she’d hidden inside. Opening it revealed an empty room. No man inside, no belt, and oddly enough no clock either. 

_Fuck._

ᛐᛤᛚ 

Riley dropped her gun in its satchel off onto the dingy bed of her only slightly less dingy hotel room. She flipped down her hood to reveal the dull black, almost violet, chin-length hair underneath. The left half of it was pinned up tightly to the side of her head in a complex series of braids while the right half hung free. Pushing her aviators up and out of the way, she rubbed at her tired eyes. Her knuckles came away covered in a smear of charcoal, the only thing she could get her hands on to mask the deep bags under her eyes.

Flopping into the desk chair, she rotated it back and forth a few times. Staring at the floor between her narrow legs instead of at the waiting terminal in front of her. Minutes passed like this, idly putting off her next task. It wasn't until her procrastination led her to counting the cracks on the ceiling that she reluctantly gave in. She tapped her fingers along the side of the terminal, dotting a trail until they depressed the power button.

The literally ancient machine took several minutes to power on. Voices tickled at the back of her mind as she stared into the black abyss of the monitor. When the login screen appeared it took only a few seconds to load the relevant data after she entered her credentials.

>Incoming signal.  
>  
>  
>Please Stand By.  
>  
>  
>

The screen blinked out again only a moment before being replaced by the two-color black and green mustachioed portrait of Robert Edwin House. De Jure head of the Free Economic Zone of New Vegas, De Facto ruler of the Greater Mojave Desert, and most relevantly, Riley’s employer.

“You know, I think I prefer when you’re on the small screens. Feels less like you’re actively attempting to assert your dominance over me,” she joked, voice hoarse as usual. She fidgeted with a dented metal tin, "mentats" scratched into the side..

“Mmm,” House hummed dismissively. “Did you take care of the drug lab as ordered?”

She managed to get the tin open and pop a mentat into her mouth. “Figured that was obvious. Wouldn’t be calling you if I didn’t.” She cracked the powdery red tablet between her teeth. A sense of clarity and relief washed over her, she relaxed in the chair.

“Focus up!” The tinny little computer demanded. She imagined he’d be snapping his fingers in front of her face, if he had fingers.

“It’s bad form to get wasted during meetings, you know.” a tuxedoed ghoul with a gaping and bloody hole through his temples whispered into her ear.

She waved her hands at him, banishing him back into the recesses of her mind. “Fuck off, not now!” she hissed, attempting to straighten back up in her seat. A tense silence hung in the air.

“Excuse you?” House asked in that particular way he did when annoyed. _Shit._

“Sorry, the uhh, the people in the neighboring rooms are obnoxious. Just constantly uhh,” she paused, searching for an excuse: “Going at it, ya know?”

“We’ll try this conversation again when you’re sober,” House said.

Riley panicked and gripped the machine by both sides. “No!” she yelped. “No, no, no. Sorry, I’m good. Sorry. This city is a shithole, I need something to help me deal with whatever the fuck bugs are living in that bed. I took care of the Wright’s drug lab you chose.”

House sighed, but didn’t hang up. “Yes, we’ve established this. But I want details. A full debrief.” He paused, likely studying her confused face through the grimy little camera set up on top of the bulky computer.

“Details? You want details?” she asked.

“Yes. Is that too difficult a task for you?” He answered condescendingly. 

“I-It’s just.” She stumbled over her words. “You never cared about details before. You only ever want results. When I tried telling you what happened with Benny you told me _‘to go elsewhere to sound your barbaric yawp,’_ ” she quoted back to him.

“That’s because the circumstances of the retrieval of the Platinum Chip were irrelevant. In that case, as with many others, only the end result mattered,” he explained, his voice returning to its baseline levels of condescension. “However, in this circumstance, the exact details of how you accomplished our goal are equally as important as the goal itself.”

Riley chewed on her ragged and split-scarred lower lip a moment. “Alright. Yeah, that makes sense. Gimme a sec to organize it, you don’t really think about what exactly you’re doing in the moment, you know.”

“You’re right, I always think about exactly what I’m going to do long before the moment’s arrived.” He replied. She imagined if he had a real face, he would have smirked after that.

She rolled her eyes. “Anyway. The plans were accurate, save some minor remodeling of the stairs anyway, so that went seamlessly. I took down the two guards at the front gate as silently as I could short of some knifey acrobatics. Nobody heard the shots over the crowd, hid the bodies from view after that.” She paused, considering her next words very carefully. 

If House knew that she’d let the man on the second-floor escape he’d be furious. That was someone she’d had direct interaction with, someone she’d tied up. But there was nothing she could do about that. She didn’t know his name or anything about him beyond the fact he looked familiar, trying to find him in New Reno could take weeks. Telling House would only earn her a verbal beating and likely another week in this city at least.

“Killed two more at the top of the third story stairs, one got a shot off as he died though.” She continued, choosing to exclude the problematic detail. “Fifth man went down shortly afterward, quick and clean. Got the sixth before he could radio for help, then destroyed the radio for good measure. Killed the seventh and last guard through a wall with the help of a prostitute. Then killed the cook.”

“And the Prostitute?” House asked.

“What about her?” Riley asked. She reached down into her shirt, fishing around for something. A moment later her hand came back up with the half fired .22 magazine. She sniffed it, wiped some sweat off onto her shawl, and tossed it onto the bed.

“Your orders were to kill anyone involved. Did you kill the prostitute?” He clarified, annoyed.

“No,” Riley answered. The picture of his face may have had a permanent smirk, but she could sense the oncoming snarl. “Before you go off on me, she wasn’t involved. She was just in the wrong place. No one would be able to place her there anyway and she wouldn’t be able to identify me if she tried, which was half the point of that order if I remember our discussion right. Relax.”

A long, exasperated sigh came from the speakers. “You’re absolutely certain no one could identify you? You know what it could mean if the Wrights can place you in that building,” he asked.

“Yes!” Riley snapped. “Yes, I am fucking positive! Alright? I haven’t talked to a single person in this fucking city the entire time I’ve been here, haven’t worn the duster publicly once, kept my hood up the entire time, and limited how often I was where anyone could see me. Are you fucking happy?” She fell back into the chair, leaning back as she covered her face with her hands.

There was another long and tense pause.

“I’m trusting you on this,” House answered finally. His voice calm and serious.

“That’s all I ever ask of you,” Riley answered. “I’m heading back home tomorrow, is that alright?” Her voice was fading into a cracked whisper, the exhaustion was beginning to overtake her.

“Yes. We’ll discuss next steps when you arrive.” He answered. 

She nodded absently, her face gaunter than usual, and got up to wander to her bed. The chair spun slowly around till the back faced the camera. The distinctive American flag pattern painted on the back of her duster slowed to a stop in the camera’s frame as she flopped on the bed. House cut the feed moments later but something still bothered him. 

>Accessing User_Wrights Robco Security Network.  
>  
>  
>Please Stand By.  
>  
>  
>  
>Access Granted  
>Please Select an entry.  
>The Wright Estate  
**> Manzanita Gates Apartments<  
**>Cylinder and Chamber.  
>  
>  
>You have selected Manzanita Gates Apartments, is this correct?  
>[Y/N]  
>Y  
>  
>  
>Please Stand By.  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>Access Granted.

The ancient database of security footage entered into House’s consciousness. He smiled to himself, or the digital equivalent of it anyway, he always did take pride in how long-lasting the machines and networks built by his company had been. A few moments of loading later and he found the footage he was looking for. 

It was grainy and abnormally distorted, likely from the Holotape being overwritten who knows how many times, but the video was very much of what he was looking for. There was no audio but the hooded woman killing two guards with a compact pistol so small the low resolution rendered it almost invisible was unmistakably Riley. She disappeared through the door and out of the camera’s view. 

Camera 2 stared at an empty hallway and the mouth of a staircase. It lingered there, alone but vigilant, for exactly two minutes and 13.3 seconds before Riley slipped from the entryway and into the staircase. If he could still blink he would have missed her. 

Camera 6 was the first available camera on the second floor, she was much more deliberate in her approach this time. Examining her surroundings, she noted the walled up staircase to her right before rounding the corner to her left and out of the camera’s limited range.

Camera 7 showed her entering an empty hallway. Curiously, however, she seemed to visibly tense up and rush to an empty spot on the wall between two apartment doors. She held out her hand against the wall, not like she was bracing against it but like she was covering something with her palm. 

_Odd._

She lifted her other hand to her mouth as if shushing the wall. She moved over to the door to her left and opened it, acting like she was covering the mouth of someone who didn’t exist the whole way before disappearing into the room. It was exactly one minute and 15.6 seconds before she reemerged and carefully closed the door behind herself. She leveled her weapon at the door and remained still and waiting for 12.9 seconds before relaxing and continuing on to her goal. The rest of the video went exactly as she described, including the odd interaction with the prostitute. 

Her coughing fit was particularly painful to watch. It lasted a full 17.4 seconds and had visible aftershocks after the worst of it had subsided. The trauma to her lungs was going to start affecting her ability to perform her duties at this rate, assuming it hadn't already. He made a mental note to look into means of lung therapy or a transplant for her.

The incident at Camera 7 stuck with him, however. He rewatched it half a dozen times and yet he couldn’t find any good answers for what exactly she was doing there. She was clearly behaving as if she was covering the mouth of someone and then restraining them, despite there clearly having been no one in that hallway but herself. 

A ping distracted him from his thoughts, one of the Gophers from the New Vegas Messenger Program Riley had convinced him to establish was outside the Lucky 38 with a message from a prospective contractor. Saving the file, he quickly cut it down to the relevant moment and saved it to her dossier for later before sending Victor down to retrieve the message. Something was clearly wrong, and he’d need to analyze this new information later.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really have a firm end goal for this story yet. All I can really say is It'll mostly be a loosely connected series of shorts again with an overarching plot arc. The rest I'm just coming up with as I go. 
> 
> As always, I'd like to thank my wonderful betas Nuke and Mu, who turn my incomprehensible chicken scratch into something legible every time and have way better ideas for my stories than I do.
> 
> Edit 1/10/2020: Quality of life format edits for better readability and fixing some stuff AO3s Rich Text editor messed up. Remembered to tick the multiple chapters thing.


End file.
